“Impressive in defeat” is something Notre Dame has been described as a decent amount when it comes to big games in recent years. The Fighting Irish are just 2-22 against top-five opponents (AP Poll) since 1999 with their most recent loss coming at Ohio State this past weekend.
It was however, closer than the experts thought as Notre Dame easily covered the 17.5 point spread they were up against. We saw yesterday that the USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll dropped Notre Dame four spots from five to nine after the loss. Now we have the AP Poll results following Week 1 and they were a hair more kind to the Irish, only dropping them three.
2022 Notre Dame opponents in regards to the AP Poll:
- Ohio State fell one spot from 2 to 3 following the 21-10 victory over the Irish
- Clemson fell from 4 to 5 following their 41-10 win over Georgia Tech
- USC moved up four spots from 14 to 10 following their 56-14 domination of Rice
- BYU moved up four spots to 21 after routing South Florida, 50-21.
Here is the full AP top 25:
Receiving votes: Oregon 131, Penn State 122, Texas 118, Cincinnati 63, Florida State 42, Fresno State 22, Minnesota 22, UCF 22, Kansas State 18, Auburn 15, Mississippi State 10, Air Force 8, Oregon State 5, North Carolina 3, South Carolina 2, UCLA 1, Arizona 1, Purdue 1